On February 7, the Sochi Winter Olympics celebrated its one-year anniversary. Exactly 12 months prior, one of the greatest sporting events in Russia’s history began. Many Russians experienced a surge of patriotism during the Games (Russia won the medal count, and the spectacle was well organized) and they hoped hosting the competition would improve the country’s reputation on the world stage.

Nevertheless, today in February 2015, Russia is in the midst of an economic crisis, and its relations with the US and European Union have reached rock bottom. Largely because of this, there has been a concerted effort across the airwaves to remind Russians about the anniversary of the country’s Olympic triumph.

TJournal draws attention to a wave of identical tweets, launched on February 7, “written” by bots about the Olympics’ anniversary.

Remembrances
Some of the replicated tweets focused simply on reminding readers about the Olympics’ anniversary. There were a few different versions of this message, which recycled various news headlines.

I was all eyes as I watched. :) The Sochi Olympics were a monumental event that reflected positively on the country’s image.

Polling results
Very actively and without any hyperlinks to the source material, bot accounts tweeted headlines from articles published at The Russian Times and RBC, drawing on survey results from the polling agencies Romir, Gallup International, and VTsIOM.

When you recalculate its cost in today’s rubles, the Sochi Olympics weren't all that expensive…

The Russian mass media
Most Russian media outlets also reported on the Olympics's anniversary in purely positive terms, without mentioning anything about the country’s subsequent economic crisis. Of all the biggest newspapers, only Argumenty i Fakty published anything remotely critical.

This is a full English-language translation of an article by Vadim Yelistratov that appeared in Russian on the website TJ on February 7, 2015.

9 February 2000 a Russian
tactical missile hit a crowd of people who had come to the local administration
On building in Shali (Сhechnya),
a town previously declared as one of the “safe areas”, to collect
their pensions. The attack was a response to a report that a group of fighters
had entered the town. The missile is estimated to have killed some 150
civilians, and was followed by an attack by combat helicopters causing further
casualties.

This post is part of RuNet Echo, a Global Voices project to interpret the Russian language internet. All Posts · Learn more